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Hi Erma, I'd love to hear any and all of it, really. I'm looking for a lot of perspectives. The reason I'm asking is b/c I went over my list of boundaries with my therapist and I was shocked when she said my boundary where I compromised the time spent with DH's FOO was still way too much time and the average extended family doesn't spend that much time together. Kind of shocked me, but again, his FOO wants to spend every weekend together and I'm also wondering if my perspective is skewed from dealing with this the last 2 years.

Pam, I have two sons. One is in unmarried and in the military. He just snuck up and surprised me over Labor Day and I will see him next when he graduates his training in Marchish. He Facebooks me and texts me a couple of times a week. He has a daughter that we had to fight legally to see, but because of his military status, we have not seen her since December last year.

My second son got married last October and I saw them last in person, at Christmas last year. They live about an hour from me, and spend just about every weekend with her FOO. An infrequent text is about all I get from him, and he called me in May when she went out of town with her family to talk. We spoke for about 2 hours. They bought a new house he was telling me about, that I have yet to be invited to see.

I was very close with both sons growing up.

We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us. -Joseph Campbell

Pam, I'm kind of in there with Pooh's experience with her 2nd son. DIL's FOO sees them daily. DS calls when DIL is out of town. DH& I can't see our FOOs often since they live very far away. The men married women who wanted to live near their FOOs so we were left behind.

Respect ... is appreciation of the separateness of the other person, of the ways in which he or she is unique. -- Annie Gottlieb

My surviving son and his lady live in Hawaii and I live in WA state. They don't like the hot summers there, so they bought a park model trailer about seven miles from me and stay there for July, Aug and Sept. He comes back in March for my birthday and stays a month to break the long period between their visits It's his "retreat." She doesn't like our winters and stays in Hawaii.

They have a lot of friends here and both of them work on their Websites while they are here. I see him maybe once a week. This year he took me in for my surgery and post op checkups but usually it is for breakfast. She is a night owl and sleeps late. She and I probably get together every other week. We love to take long walks and talk. They come to visit Val in nursing about once a month and hang out with me here afterward.

When there is a family "do" involving my grandson (my deceased son's youngest) and the rest of the clan, we usually go together. And if something comes up between visits, we call or email.

Hi Pam, I think this is a good question and one that I find really interesting.

I'm a DIL, we live 6 hours drive away from my FOO and 4 hours drive away from my IL's. My Dad died about 2 years ago, my Mom is retired. My IL's are not retired. Everyone involved is comfortable money-wise.

We see my Mom 15 or so times a year and she often stays for a week at a time, we probably spend 60 days a year with my Mom. Of those 15 visits, she visits us 6 times, we visit her at home twice and we go to her cottage (it's only 1.5 hrs away) 7 times.

We see my IL's about 4 times a year, of which they visit us twice and we visit them twice. In the past, we would visit them 4 or more times per year, however, they never visited us more than twice and once went 2 years without ever coming to our house. Since DD was born, we have had to scale back our trips because it's hard to travel with a carsick kid. Sadly, the IL's have not stepped up their visits to us. To be fair, MIL works a lot of evenings and weekends.

I would also like to bring up QUALITY of visits. My Mom takes the time to play with DD. She comes prepared for whatever activities and can be counted on to participate enthusiastically.

The IL's come to our city to shop. Even if we tell them to dress for the weather, they don't, and thus we don't do 'fun' things with them. If we even go for a walk, MIL & FIL will walk 20 ft ahead of us. DD loves her Gma and would have held her hand and skipped and looked at rocks or whatever, but MIL was 20 ft ahead of us. When we visit the IL's, MIL always has appointments. If we do plan to do something fun with SisIL and the DN's, MIL & FIL don't even come to watch ALL OF THEIR GRANDKIDS doing something fun together.

Whoa - can you see you hit a nerve here with me? It's because I have an innate sense of fairness, and I *know* that this arrangement is not "fair" to my IL's. But as far as I can see, they don't seem to make much of an effort, either to visit us, or to plan fun things when we do visit or to participate in the fun things we've planned. So I've scaled back my level of effort to match theirs.

erma

well, here goes, ill try to be short. my dh's foo, we see at least once a month, usually more because its a family of 38, soon to be 42! so many family occasions to deal with.my foo, once a month for the most part. more during bad weather.my kids and grandkids- twice a month, sometimes more around the holidays. i talk to my dd 3-5 times a week, on the phone.

my foo is now only my father, everyone else has passed, but i was so close with my siblings, we talked 3-5 times a week. our mother died when we were very, very, little.my kids and i were extremely close when they lived at home, and continue to be, except ds. we (the rest of the family) can tell he misses us though by what he says when were together.my dh foo, was extremely close family too growing up.i dunno, my family "hangs out" together, thats the way we were raised i guess. our friends hang out with ALL of us.hope that helped pam..........

Pooh & Pen, how frustrating. In an ideal world, how often would you like to see them? If someone asked you point blank an actual number per week/month/year...what would be your answer? (no right or wrong, I'm really just curious here)

Luise, I'm so glad that works for you and everyone. It does sound like a really ideal type of situation where everyone is respected.

Scoop, I'm right with you on the "fair" aspect and I guess that is what I'm struggling with. As much as I say to others in my post that "fair" isn't equal...well, it still bothers me. But ironically I'm being told that I'm still compromising way more than I should be!

Quote from: erma on October 25, 2010, 10:04:09 amwell, here goes, ill try to be short. my dh's foo, we see at least once a month, usually more because its a family of 38, soon to be 42! so many family occasions to deal with.my foo, once a month for the most part. more during bad weather.my kids and grandkids- twice a month, sometimes more around the holidays. i talk to my dd 3-5 times a week, on the phone.

my foo is now only my father, everyone else has passed, but i was so close with my siblings, we talked 3-5 times a week. our mother died when we were very, very, little.my kids and i were extremely close when they lived at home, and continue to be, except ds. we (the rest of the family) can tell he misses us though by what he says when were together.my dh foo, was extremely close family too growing up.i dunno, my family "hangs out" together, thats the way we were raised i guess. our friends hang out with ALL of us.hope that helped pam..........

That did help, a lot Erma. Just a few months ago we saw DH's FOO doubled and in some cases, triple the amounts you posted. It helps me to see that you can still consider this close and hanging out while not seeing them at the rates we are expected too.

Hmmm. I guess I have never thought about an amount of time before. I obviously want to spend more time with them, so even though I would never hold them to a schedule of sorts, I guess my idea of an appropriate time frame: I would love to have them for dinner or go to their house for dinner, or meet them for dinner once a month. My granddaughter, even though I would love to smoochie her every day, I think twice a month would be realistic.

I am a firm believer that your children must have time to live their own lives.

We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us. -Joseph Campbell

MLW07

I by myself see my FOO much more than that; mostly due to having a shiftworker DH who works nights and my FOO's home is about 30 minutes closer to my work.

We just now started visiting with my DH's FOO again after a two year cutoff. The plan at this time is to see them about once a month. Before the cutoff they expected us to be there every weekend for most of the weekend.

My FOO lives about an hour from us and my DH's FOO lives about an hour from us. They live in opposite directions from us.

Maybe I should also relate how it worked (to use the term loosely) with my eldest son...who died 10 years ago at 52. It does not have the same pattern:

He called me every Saturday. They were "duty" calls and I often found them uncomfortable. My DIL called me rarely and then it was to tell me that I had done something she didn't like at our last meeting.

My son decided in his teens that I was his enemy (after thirteen good years) and from then on until he died of a sleep-apnea stroke, blamed me for everything that wasn't right in his world. He married a woman who hated her mother and had the same dynamic going and together they sang the "Somebody Done Me Wrong Song."

They visited us maybe three or four times a year and had us to their place about the same number of times. From my point of view they were all "duty" visits. We all pretended everything was fine and I'm sure they were as glad when they were over as we were. I was sent flowers on the appropriate days and was given gifts. I reciprocated.

He called me every Saturday. They were "duty" calls and I often found them uncomfortable. My DIL called me rarely and then it was to tell me that I had done something she didn't like at our last meeting.

My son decided in his teens that I was his enemy (after thirteen good years) and from then on until he died of a sleep-apnea stroke, blamed me for everything that wasn't right in his world. He married a woman who hated her mother and had the same dynamic going and together they sang the "Somebody Done Me Wrong Song."

They visited us maybe three or four times a year and had us to their place about the same number of times. From my point of view they were all "duty" visits. We all pretended everything was fine and I'm sure they were as glad when they were over as we were. I was sent flowers on the appropriate days and was given gifts. I reciprocated.

So sad Luise. I can relate to that on the other end as a DIL. With my first marriage, we did see his family about once a month, and they were always "duty" visits for me. I didn't like her, she didn't like me. Plain and simple. But I did them because my DH loved his Mother. I was always uncomfortable, because every visit was her complaining about something I wasn't doing right. But I suffered through them for 21 years, out of "duty". I don't miss those at all.

My MIL this time around is a lovely woman and we see her about once a month. My DH's family has a once-a-month gathering to celebrate all the birthdays for the month. It is a wonderful time, and I look forward to going.

We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us. -Joseph Campbell